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Deficits in motor performance have been well documented in individuals with Down syndrome (DS). However, only a few studies have focused on manipulative skills and older adults in this population. Given the associations between manipulative skills and daily living activities, more work is needed to examine the aging effect on individuals with DS. A total of 54 adults with DS participated in this study. The results indicated that older participants showed more lateralization than younger participants. They exhibited superior dominant hand preference compared to younger participants. In addition, participants with DS with high verbal ability had better performance in manual dexterity and handgrip force. Therefore, in the clinical setting, assessing mental age may help in identifying individuals with DS at a higher risk of motor impairment. Future work should examine additional determinants with a large sample size to understand the development of manipulative skills in individuals with DS. Furthermore, additional studies are needed to investigate the associations between mental age and other cognitive functions and motor performance in this population.

The "over-age, under-credited" (OA/UC) student population is defined as high school students who are at least two years behind their peers in terms of age and credits earned toward a high school diploma. To date, few studies have examined the schooling of OA/UC students. The purpose of this study is to use the insights of six African American OA/UC high school students to define strategies for improving educational outcomes at their school. The specific research question explored is: What recommendations, rooted in participants' race, gender, and age, do they offer for improving the educational experiences of OA/UC students? Data analysis for this case study incorporates critical race theory, adult learning theory, and culturally relevant pedagogy as a comprehensive theoretical and analytic framework. The findings serve to provide a foundation for realizing a radical praxis that leads to substantive changes in the education of OA/UC African American high school students.

The social and motor context in which restricted and repetitive behaviors (RRBs) occur in autism and their relationship to social traits are not well-understood. Participants with and without autism completed tasks that varied in social and motor engagement and RRB frequency was measured. Motor and verbal RRBs were most common, RRBs varied based on motor and social context for participants with autism, and social engagement was associated with lower motor and verbal RRBs. Significant correlations between RRBs and autism severity, social synchrony, and nonverbal mental age were also found. This research confirms the importance of context for understanding RRBs during on-going tasks and raises questions about whether the factors that elicit vocal and motor RRBs are unique for individual children.

General cognitive and specific number abilities that underlay arithmetic performance have been heavily investigated among typically developing students; however, the inquiry has rarely been applied to students with mild intellectual disability (MID). We examined whether domain-general cognitive abilities (i.e. working memory, processing speed, and long-term memory) and specific number skills (i.e. approximate and exact numerical systems) are related to arithmetic performance in 93 students with MID (mental age of 7.1 to 8.9 years) and if these relationships are similar to the ones found in 113 typically developing students with the same mental age. The results of our regression models indicated that, in both groups, the three general cognitive abilities independently explained the variance in arithmetic performance when entered in one step; however, none of them had an independent contribution to arithmetic skill in the presence of the specific number abilities. These findings supported those of Von Aster and Shale's developmental model of mathematical cognition and reinforced the notion that specific number abilities constitute the basis for arithmetic skill, and it is possible with the support of the general cognitive abilities among both students with MID and typically developing students.

Background: Individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) show difficulties with everyday planning. A tablet-based training program for everyday planning may be a suitable intervention, but its feasibility must be evaluated. This study evaluated how behavior changes during training and if individuals with ID can use technology by themselves. Method: Thirty-three adolescents with ID and 30 younger children with a typical development were recruited. The participants were instructed to train in school for a total of 300 minutes. After the intervention, the participants were matched on mental age (MA). Results: Only 16% of the participants trained for all 300 minutes. Participants in the MA group trained for a longer time than the ID group. Both groups made fewer errors per task at the end compared to the beginning. Individuals with ID started off making less attempts per task and increased their activity during the training. This pattern was not seen in the comparison group. Conclusions: Both groups used the program independently, without adult supervision. However, a large group of participants in the ID group had a low usage time. Thus, the program might not have been feasible for that subgroup. The ID group increased their activity during the training which might mirror a strategy development of how to use the program. The change in behavior in activity on task attempts can be interpreted such that individuals with ID need a longer time to get familiarized with the technology. Tablet-based training programs are feasible for individuals with ID, but it is necessary to follow up on usage time.

It has been reported that approximate number sense (ANS) task performance is impaired in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) and Down syndrome (DS). Research with infants has suggested this impairment is caused by sticky fixation in WS and sustained attention deficits for those with DS. This study examined looking patterns of older children and adults with WS (n = 24) and DS (n = 23) during an ANS task compared to typically developing controls matched for chronological age and those matched for mental age. Results showed that, although there were no group differences, looking patterns changed with chronological age for both the WS and DS groups. Looking behaviour related to ANS performance only in the WS group. Implications for interventions are discussed.

Children often answer questions when they do not have the requisite knowledge or when they do not understand them. We examined whether "ground rules" instruction--to say "I don't know," to tell the truth, and to correct the interviewer when necessary--assisted children in applying those rules during an interview about a past event and whether doing so was associated with more accurate accounts. We compared children with intellectual disabilities (mild or moderate severity, n = 44, 7-12 years) with 3 groups of typically developing children (2 matched for mental age, and 1 for chronological age, n = 55, 4-12 years) on their understanding of 3 ground rules, their use of these rules in an interview, and their accuracy in recalling a personally experienced event. Many children were able to demonstrate proficiency with the rules following simple instruction but others required additional teaching. Children applied the rules sparingly in the interview. Their scores on the practice trials of each rule were unrelated to each other, and to the use of the rules in context. Their developmental level was significantly related to both of these skills. Regression models showed that developmental level was the best predictor of children's accuracy when they recounted their experience during the interview but that use of responses consistent with the rules, in conjunction with developmental level, predicted accurate resistance to suggestive questions. Future research should identify how best to prepare children of different ages and cognitive abilities to answer adults' questions appropriately.

The ability to describe routes was assessed in participants with intellectual disability (ID) and participants without ID matched on chronological age (CA) or on mental age (MA). In two experiments, participants learned a route through a virtual environment until they reached a learning criterion. They were then asked to externalize their spatial knowledge in a verbal description task, a landmark recognition task, or a map completion task. Results revealed that participants with ID mainly described the route as a succession of actions ("turn left"), and participants in the CA group prescribed actions referring to a landmark ("turn left at the swing"). Yet, results from the other tasks showed that people with ID had good landmark knowledge of the environment.

Background: Children and adults with neurotypical development employ linguistic information to predict and anticipate information. Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) have weaknesses in language production and the domain of grammar but relative strengths in language comprehension and the domain of semantics. What is not clear is the extent to which they can use linguistic information, as it unfolds in real time, to anticipate upcoming information correctly. Aims: To investigate whether children and young people with DS employ verb information to predict and anticipate upcoming linguistic information. Methods & Procedures: A preferential looking task was performed, using an eye-tracker, with children and teenagers with DS and a typically developing (TD) control group matched by sex and mental age (average = 5.48 years). In each of 10 trials, two images were presented, a target and a distractor, while participants heard a phrase that contained a semantically informative verb (e.g., 'eat') or an uninformative verb (e.g., 'see'). Outcomes & Results: Both DS and TD control participants could anticipate the target upon hearing an informative verb, and prediction skills were positively correlated with mental age in those with DS. Conclusions & Implications: This work demonstrates for the first time that children and teenagers with DS can predict linguistic information based on semantic cues from verbs, and that sentence processing is driven by predictive relationships between verbs and arguments, as in children with typical development. Clinicians can take advantage of these prediction skills, using them in therapy to support weaker areas.

Purpose: Many observations and anecdotes have suggested that individuals with Down syndrome (DS) love music, specifically moving to music. The purpose of this study, with the assumption that the music makes people with DS dance showing more movement than general public's, is to observe the change in movement patterns of people with DS while they dance. Methods: The present study videotaped 10 individuals with DS and 10 mental age-matched (MA) participants dancing in response to five different types of music (e.g. rock fast, rock slow, classical, jazz, pop). Results: Our preliminary results suggest that individuals with DS had significantly more body sway than MA participants. In addition, individuals with DS were more active to the music than MA participants. However, no motor timing deficit was evident. Conclusions: This suggests that individuals with DS actively maintain their posture position in the challenging condition. Furthermore, they clearly enjoyed listening to the music and dancing. Based on our results, we suggest that more research need to be conducted examining the effects of dancing program on postural control, and timing in this population.

This study examined the reading interest and emergent literacy skills of 31 children with Down syndrome (DS) ages 7 to 13. Parents completed questionnaires on their children's interest in reading, home literacy environments, and parental beliefs about reading. Children were then assessed on their cognitive and emergent literacy skills. Correlational analyses revealed that parental beliefs related to children's receptive vocabulary and comprehension, especially when parents reported asking questions during book reading, encouraging children to ask questions and help tell the story, and guiding them to learn lessons and life skills from books. Home literacy environments predicted children's interest in reading, and children's mental age predicted their emergent literacy skills. A mental age of 3.50 years appears necessary (but not sufficient) for children with DS to achieve beginning literacy skills. (Contains 6 tables.)

Background: Episodic memory deficits are a characteristic of cognitive dysfunction in people with Down syndrome (DS). However, less is known about the processes (i.e. encoding, retention or using learned information flexibly) that underlie these deficits. Method: We explored these abilities by administering a relational memory and inference task to participants with DS and mental age-matched controls and testing both immediately and after a 24-h delay. Results: Adults with DS learned paired associates more slowly than controls but showed good recognition at both the immediate and delayed tests. Despite memory for learned pairs, adults with DS were less able to use relational learning flexibly to make inferential judgements than controls. Conclusions: These results deepen our understanding of the cognitive profile of adults with DS, demonstrating deficits in both encoding new information, and flexibly using such information. These results have important implications for workplace training and intervention programs for people with DS.

Research was undertaken to examine the level of support and general attitudes towards multi-level selective classes for gifted students amongst the staff and parents of an independent (non-government) boys' Preparatory school, located in Adelaide, South Australia. Questionnaires were sent to all parents and staff in the Preparatory school and approximately 50 per cent chose to participate, which equated to 90 parents and 14 staff. The responses received reflected the range of attitudes noted in the literature. This article examines some of these attitudes in the light of the research on grouping for gifted students, and evaluates the benefits and disadvantages that parents and staff expressed about the multi-level selective classes at the school in question. A general overview of current provisions within South Australia for gifted students, and findings from the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education References Committee report into the Education of gifted children in Australia (The Senate Committee, 2001) puts this provision into context.

This longitudinal study examined pragmatic language in boys and girls with Down syndrome (DS) at up to three time points, using parent report, standardized and direct assessments. We also explored relationships among theory of mind, executive function, nonverbal mental age, receptive and expressive vocabulary, grammatical complexity, and pragmatic competence. Controlling for cognitive and language abilities, children with DS demonstrated greater difficulty than younger typically developing controls on parent report and standardized assessments, but only girls with DS differed on direct assessments. Further, pragmatic skills of individuals with DS developed at a delayed rate relative to controls. Some sex-specific patterns of pragmatic impairments emerged. Theory of mind and executive function both correlated with pragmatic competence. Clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are thought to encounter planning difficulties, but experimental research regarding the mastery of planning in ASD is inconsistent. By means of a meta-analysis of 50 planning studies with a combined sample size of 1755 individuals with and 1642 without ASD, we aim to determine whether planning difficulties do exist and which factors contribute to this. Planning problems were evident in individuals with ASD (Hedges'g = 0.52), even when taking publication bias into account (Hedges'g = 0.37). Neither age, nor task-type, nor IQ reduced the observed heterogeneity, suggesting that these were not crucial moderators within the current meta-analysis. However, while we showed that ASD individuals encounter planning difficulties, the bias towards publishing positive findings restricts strong conclusions regarding the role of potential moderators.

The current study examined delays in syntax and morphology, and vocabulary, in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Children ages 4-6 years with ASD (n = 21) and typical development (n = 21), matched on nonverbal mental age, completed five language tasks. The ASD group had significant delays in both syntax and morphology, and vocabulary measures, with significant within-group heterogeneity; furthermore, syntactic and morphological measures were impaired even for subgroups matched on vocabulary. Children in the ASD group without early language delay showed syntactic and morphological impairment, with intact performance on vocabulary and sentence repetition. Findings indicate that syntactic and morphological impairments are a significant concern for high-functioning children with ASD, and may be overlooked if language evaluation focuses exclusively on vocabulary.

Mathematics is an important aspect of daily life. Basic numeracy skills are needed to accomplish everyday tasks. However, research regarding the relationship between cognitive ability, mental age, and basic numeracy skills for children with intellectual disability (ID) is scarce. This research study investigated the correlation between intellectual ability and the development of number sense and arithmetic abilities in individuals with ID. Thirty-two students from a special school for individuals with ID in Singapore participated in this research study. Based on the results, basic numeracy is more closely correlated to the mental ages of the students than their intelligence quotient. This finding will be discussed and suggestions for future research will be provided.

Sensory symptoms are prevalent in autism spectrum disorder but little is known about the early developmental patterns of these symptoms. This study examined the development of sensory symptoms and the relationship between sensory symptoms and adaptive functioning during early childhood. Three groups of children were followed across three time points from 2 to 8 years of age: autism spectrum disorder, developmental delay, and typical development. At each time point, parents filled out questionnaires regarding their child's sensory symptoms and adaptive functioning. At the initial time point, parents of children with autism spectrum disorder reported more sensory symptoms in their children than parents in the typical development group. Parents in the autism spectrum disorder group reported more sensory symptoms than parents in the developmental delay group within smell, taste, and auditory domains. While the typical development group decreased in reported sensory symptoms across the study period, the clinical groups demonstrated no significant change across assessment points. Sensory symptoms for all groups were not independently predictive of adaptive functioning when verbal mental age was also included in the model. The young age range at the initial assessment and pattern of results suggest that sensory symptoms are present early in the etiology of autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disorders and remain stable over time.

Differences in joint attention are prominent for some children with autism and are often used as an indicator of the disorder. This study examined the joint attention competencies of young children with autism who demonstrated joint attention ability and compared them to children with developmental delays. A total of 40 children with autism and developmental delays were matched pairwise based on mental and chronological age. Videos of children engaging in play were coded for the frequency and forms (eye contact, gestures, affect, etc.) of joint attention. Additionally, concurrent language was compared among children with autism (N = 32) by their joint attention ability. Children with autism spectrum disorder entered into joint attention significantly less often than children with developmental delays, but once engaged used the forms of joint attention similarly. For the matched pairs, there were no differences in language, but the children with autism who used joint attention had significantly better language than children with autism who did not (even after controlling for mental age). There is a group of young children with autism who can use joint attention but do so at lower frequencies than children with developmental delays. Possible reasons include difficulty disengaging attention and limited intrinsic social motivation to share. Adult persistence is recommended to encourage joint attention.

Working memory (WM) impairments might amplify behavioural difference in genetic syndromes. Murine models of Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome (RTS) evidence memory impairments but there is limited research on memory in RTS. Individuals with RTS and typically developing children completed WM tasks, with participants with RTS completing an IQ assessment and parents/carers completing the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales. A cross-sectional trajectory analysis was conducted. There were significant WM span deficits in RTS relative to mental age. Verbal WM span was positively associated with mental age; however, this was not observed for visuo-spatial span. There is a dissociation between WM domains in RTS. Individuals may have difficulties with tasks relying on WM span, above difficulties predicted by overall ability.

A number of studies suggest that imitation is a characteristic strength in children with Down Syndrome (DS). The present study aims to discover whether imitation performances are qualitatively phenotypical in DS. Eight preschoolers with DS were matched on chronological, mental, language and imitation age with 8 preschoolers with intellectual disability of undifferentiated etiology (ID-UND). Imitation performances on the Preschool Imitation and Praxis Scale were videotaped for blind scoring on 30 possible errors. Children with DS made fewer production errors (synkinesias, OR 0.3 [0.1-0.7]), but more conceptual errors (substitution, OR 2.5 [1.6-3.9]) compared to children with ID-UND. This finding is in line with the view of a cognitive phenotype in DS, which is characterized by preserved visuospatial and impaired language abilities.

We investigate the function bias--generalising words to objects with the same function--in typically developing (TD) children, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with other developmental disorders. Across four trials, a novel object was named and its function was described and demonstrated. Children then selected the other referent from a shape match (same shape, different function) and function match (same function, different shape) object. TD children and children with ASD were "function biased", although further investigation established that having a higher VMA facilitated function bias understanding in TD children, but having a "lower" VMA facilitated function bias understanding in children with ASD. This suggests that children with ASD are initially attuned to object function, not shape.

Here we examine imaginative drawing abilities in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and learning disabilities (LD) under several conditions: spontaneous production, with use of a template, and combining two real entities to form an "unreal" entity. Sixteen children in each group, matched on mental and chronological age, were asked to draw a number of "impossible" pictures of humans and dogs. Children with ASD were impaired in spontaneous drawings and included fewer impossible features than children with LD, but there was no difference when a template was provided. An autism-specific deficit was revealed in the task involving combining entities. Results suggest that children with ASD do not have a general imaginative deficit; impairment is instead related to planning demands.

Daily living skills (DLS), such as personal hygiene, meal preparation, and money management, are important to independent living. Research suggests that many individuals with autism spectrum disorder exhibit impairments in daily living skills relative to their cognitive skills. This study examined predictors of daily living skills attainment and trajectories of daily living skills in a longitudinal sample referred for possible autism spectrum disorder and followed from 2 to 21?years of age. Consistent with previous studies, participants with autism spectrum disorder and nonspectrum diagnoses showed continual development of daily living skills throughout childhood and adolescence. Early childhood nonverbal mental age was the strongest predictor of daily living skills attainment for both diagnostic groups. Group-based modeling suggested two distinct trajectories of daily living skills development for participants with autism spectrum disorder. Skill levels for both groups of young adults with autism spectrum disorder remained considerably below age level expectations. Whereas the "High-DLS" group gained approximately 12?years in daily living skills from T2 to T21, the "Low-DLS" group's daily living skills improved 3-4?years over the 16- to 19-year study period. Nonverbal mental age, receptive language, and social-communication impairment at 2?years predicted High- versus Low-DLS group membership. Receiving greater than 20?h of parent-implemented intervention before age 3 was also associated with daily living skills trajectory. Results suggest that daily living skills should be a focus of treatment plans for individuals with autism spectrum disorder, particularly adolescents transitioning to young adulthood.

Although reading skills are critical for the success of individuals with intellectual disabilities, literacy has received little attention in fragile X syndrome (FXS). This study examined the literacy profile of FXS. Boys with FXS (n = 51; mean age 10.2 years) and mental age-matched boys with typical development (n = 35) participated in standardized assessments of reading and phonological skills. Phonological skills were impaired in FXS, while reading was on-par with that of controls. Phonological awareness predicted reading ability and ASD severity predicted poorer phonological abilities in FXS. Boys with FXS are capable of attaining reading skills that are commensurate with developmental level and phonological awareness skills may play a critical role in reading achievement in FXS.

Background: Although many children with Down syndrome experience hearing loss, there has been little research to investigate its impact on speech and language development. Studies that have investigated the association give inconsistent results. These have often been based on samples where children with the most severe hearing impairments have been excluded and so results do not generalize to the wider population with Down syndrome. Also, measuring children's hearing at the time of a language assessment does not take into account the fluctuating nature of hearing loss in children with Down syndrome or possible effects of losses in their early years. Aims: To investigate the impact of early hearing loss on language outcomes for children with Down syndrome. Methods & Procedures: Retrospective audiology clinic records and parent report for 41 children were used to categorize them as either having had hearing difficulties from 2 to 4 years or more normal hearing. Differences between the groups on measures of language expression and comprehension, receptive vocabulary, a narrative task and speech accuracy were investigated. Outcomes & Results: After accounting for the contributions of chronological age and nonverbal mental age to children's scores, there were significant differences between the groups on all measures. Conclusions & Implications: Early hearing loss has a significant impact on the speech and language development of children with Down syndrome. Results suggest that speech and language therapy should be provided when children are found to have ongoing hearing difficulties and that joint audiology and speech and language therapy clinics could be considered for preschool children.

Stimulus overselectivity is widely accepted as a stimulus control abnormality in autism spectrum disorders and subsets of other populations. Previous research has demonstrated a link between both chronological and mental age and overselectivity in typical development. However, the age at which children are developmentally ready to respond to discriminations involving simultaneous multiple cues has not been established. Thirty-seven typically developing preschoolers completed a task requiring response to simultaneous cues (color and shape) to establish the age at which typically developing children can successfully respond to multiple cues. Results demonstrate that typically developing children under 36 months of age have difficulty responding to multiple cues. Implications for behavioral treatment for autism are discussed.

This study aimed to clarify factors related to difficulties in responding to "yes/no" questions (Y/N-Qs) among 52 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 41 boys and 11 girls aged between 3:5-16:0 years. Participants completed the Tanaka-Binet Intelligence Scale V, the Picture Vocabulary Test: Revised (PVT-R), and the Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Autism Society Japan Rating Scale (PARS). A "yes/no" test, developed for this study, included two types of task: a naming true/false task and a request-intention task. For the naming true/false task, clear "yes/no" responses accounted for 60% of responses among preschool children and more than 90% of responses among school-aged children in the normal IQ and mildly cognitively-impaired groups. In contrast, clear "yes/no" responses accounted for less than 30% of responses in the moderately cognitively-impaired group, and less than 1% in the severely cognitively-impaired group. For the request-intention task, clear "yes/no" responses were higher than for naming true/false tasks. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that scores of PARS, estimated mental age, vocabulary age according to the PVT-R, and IQ are associated with clear yes/no responses. These findings appear to indicate that ability or inability to respond to Y/N-Qs follows a developmental pattern in children with ASD. (Contains 6 tables and 4 figures.)

People with Williams syndrome (WS) are said to have sociable and extremely trusting personalities, approaching strangers without hesitation. This study investigated whether people with WS are less likely than controls to attribute negative intent to others when interpreting a series of ambiguous pictures. This may, at least partially, explain their hypersociability toward strangers. Twenty-seven individuals with WS and 54 typically developing controls (27 matched to WS participants on sex and chronological age and 27 matched on sex and mental age) viewed 10 ambiguous pictures, where one person in the picture may be seen as having a negative objective. Participants were asked to describe what was happening in the picture. Responses were scored for negative intention attribution (NIA). NIA was reduced in WS individuals relative to typically developing controls of the same chronological age, but was similar to typically developing controls of the same mental age. Findings are discussed in relation to possible underlying neurological and cognitive mechanisms and practical implications for understanding and teaching stranger danger to people with WS. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

The aim of this study was to assess wayfinding abilities in individuals with Down syndrome (DS). The ability to learn routes though a virtual environment (VE) and to make a novel shortcut between two locations was assessed in individuals with DS (N = 10) and control participants individually matched on mental age (MA) or chronological age (CA). The results showed that most of the participants with DS were able to learn routes through the VE, even though they needed more trials than the CA controls to reach the learning criterion. However, they did not show flexible wayfinding behaviour because they were unable to find a shortcut between two known locations (unlike the CA controls). The results suggest that most individuals with DS can acquire knowledge about specific routes, but are unable to integrate that knowledge into a configurational understanding of the environment. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

The main aims of the current research were to determine when children develop a temporally extended self (TES) and what factors contribute to its development. However, in order to address these aims it was important to, first, assess whether the test of delayed self-recognition (DSR) is a valid measure for the development of the TES, and, second, to propose and evaluate a theoretical model that describes what factors influence the development of the TES. The validity of the DSR test was verified by comparing the performance of 57 children on the DSR test to their performance on a meta-representational task (modified false belief task) and to a task that was essentially the same as the DSR test but was specifically designed to rely on the capacity to entertain secondary representations (i.e., surprise body task). Longitudinal testing of the children showed that at the mental age (MA) of 2.5 years they failed the DSR test, despite training them to understand the intended functions of the medium used in the DSR test; whereas, with training, children at the MA of 3.0 and 3.5 years exhibited DSR. Children at the MA of 4 years exhibited DSR without any training. Finally, results suggest that children's meta-representational ability was the only factor that contributed to the prediction of successful performance on the DSR test, and thus to the "emergence" of the TES. Furthermore, prospective longitudinal data revealed that caregiver conversational style was the only factor that contributed to the prediction of level of training required to pass the DSR test. That is, children of low-elaborative caregivers required significantly more training to pass the DSR test than children of high-elaborative caregivers, indicating that children who received more elaborative conversational input from their caregivers had a more "advanced" understanding of their TES. (Contains 15 figures, 13 tables, and 5 notes.)

This study investigated the development of novel metaphor and metonymy comprehension in both typically developing (TD) children and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS). Thirty-one TD children between the ages of 3;09 and 17;01 and thirty-four individuals with WS between the ages of 7;01 and 44 years old were administered a newly developed task examining novel metaphor and metonymy comprehension, as well as a range of standardised tests that assess semantic knowledge. This age range and the background measures allowed construction of developmental trajectories to investigate whether chronological age or mental age, represented by word knowledge, relate to novel metaphor and metonymy comprehension. The results showed that comprehension of figurative language did not increase with chronological age in WS, in contrast to TD. Although there was no difference for the different types of metaphors, certain metonymy expressions were found to be easier than others in the TD group. In addition, semantic knowledge was a reliable predictor for novel metaphor and metonymy comprehension in the TD but only for metonymy in the WS group. In sum, development of novel metonymy in the WS group is only delayed while comprehension of novel metaphor is both delayed and atypical. However, future research should further investigate differences between sub-types, as well as what cognitive factors relate to novel metaphor comprehension in individuals with Williams syndrome. (Contains 3 figures and 2 tables.)

The autistic impairments in emotional and social competence, imagination and generating ideas predict qualitative differences in expressive drawings by children with autism beyond that accounted by any general learning difficulties. In a sample of 60 5-19-year-olds, happy and sad drawings were requested from 15 participants with non-savant autism and compared with those drawn by three control groups matched on either degree of learning difficulty (MLD), mental age (MA) or chronological age (CA). All drawings were rated by two artists on a 7-point quality of expression scale. Contrary to our predictions, the drawings from the autistic group were rated similar to those of the MA and MLD groups. Analysis of the people and social content of the drawings revealed that although children with autism did not draw fewer people, they did draw more immature forms than mental age controls. Furthermore, there was tentative evidence that fewer social scenes were produced by the autism sample. We conclude that the overall merit of expressive drawing in autism is commensurate with their general learning difficulties, but the social/emotional impairment in autism affects their drawings of people and social scenes.

Adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have shown deficits in switching between rules governing their behaviour, as have high-functioning children with ASD. However, there are few studies of flexibility in lower-functioning children with ASD. The current study investigated this phenomenon with a group of low-functioning children with ASD compared to a mental-age-matched comparison group. The ASD group learned an initial discrimination task as quickly as the matched comparison group, but when the rule governing the discrimination was shifted, the comparison group learned the task with fewer errors, and made the discrimination more quickly than the groups with ASD. These findings suggest that low-functioning children with ASD do display the predicted deficits in extra-dimensional shift. (Contains 1 table and 2 figures.)

Whereas pragmatic language difficulties are characteristic of both autism and Fragile X syndrome, it is unclear whether such deficits are qualitatively similar or whether certain skills are differentially affected. This study compared narrative competence in boys with autism, Fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome, and typical development. Results revealed that an interaction between diagnosis and nonverbal mental age predicted narrative microstructure (e.g., complex syntax) but not macrostructure (e.g., thematic maintenance). Correlations with "FMR1"-related variation were investigated in children with Fragile X syndrome. While CGG repeat length was associated with many language characteristics, nonverbal IQ appeared to mediate these relationships. These findings are an important step toward understanding narrative abilities in boys with and without the "FMR1" mutation.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) routinely fail false belief tests of theory of mind (ToM), even at advanced chronological and mental ages. Initial training efforts were largely disappointing for those with ASD, suggesting an intractable deficit. However, more recently, children with ASD trained with various pictorial strategies (like thought bubbles to depict beliefs) have made modest gains on trained ToM tasks, despite poor generalization and unanswered methodological questions. The present study therefore aimed to further examine the possible benefits of thought-bubble training for children with ASD while overcoming past methodological limitations. Our design advanced upon past thought-bubble studies by incorporating: (a) a non-intervention control group to test specificity of gains to the training intervention, (b) a broad ToM Scale to examine generalization of gains to other steps in ToM growth besides (trained) false belief, (c) a comprehensive assessment of children's verbal and nonverbal abilities, and (d) a delayed follow-up test. Results from 24 children with ASD aged 4.67-12.25 years revealed even stronger evidence than previously that thought-bubble training is genuinely beneficial in the context of autism. Statistically significant gains were made by trained children that, furthermore, (a) generalized beyond false-belief to other ToM concepts and (b) were maintained for at least 3 weeks. Control children showed no significant gains of any kind despite their close match to trained children at pretest. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. (Contains 2 tables.)

The cognitive profile of individuals with Down syndrome (DS) is known to be characterized by an impaired executive functioning, but inhibition-related processes have not been extensively examined in this setting. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether individuals with DS have any specific or general deficit in inhibitory processes. Tasks measuring prepotent response inhibition (the animal Stroop test), proactive interference (proactive interference task and intrusion errors), and response to distracters (directed forgetting task) were administered together with a working memory test to 19 individuals with DS and 19 typically developing (TD) children matched for mental age. Confirming previous findings, our results showed that the DS group performed less well in a verbal working memory task than the TD children. Analyzing our findings for the three inhibitory tasks yielded a picture of the DS children having a generalized difficulty in suppressing information that is irrelevant, or no longer relevant, to the goals of the task. These results suggest that DS is related not to specific, but rather to generalized inhibitory difficulties. (Contains 2 tables.)

Background: Fragile X syndrome (FXS) and Down syndrome (DS) are the two leading genetic causes of intellectual disability, and FXS is the most common known genetic condition associated with autism. Both FXS and DS are associated with significant language impairment, but little is known about expressive language across domains over time or the role of autism in language development in FXS. Aims: To compare three domains of language production (vocabulary, syntax, pragmatics) over time within and across groups of boys with FXS with and without autism spectrum disorder (FXS-ASD, FXS-O), boys with DS, and typically developing (TD) boys. Methods & Procedures: Twenty-nine boys with FXS-O, 40 boys with FXS-ASD, 34 boys with DS, and 48 younger TD boys of similar non-verbal mental age living in the United States participated in the study. The Antonyms, Syntax Construction and Pragmatic Judgment subtests of the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language were administered annually over 3 years. Outcomes & Results: TD boys scored higher than all other groups on all three subtests; boys with FXS-O and FXS-ASD scored higher than boys with DS in Syntax Construction; and boys with FXS-O scored higher than boys with FXS-ASD in Pragmatic Judgment. Within-group patterns varied between groups. Overall, the TD group showed significantly more change over time than all other groups. Conclusions & Implications: Findings suggest that expressive language skills and growth across various domains are more impaired in boys with FXS and DS than would be expected based on non-verbal mental age, that for boys with DS syntax is more impaired than would be expected based on intellectual disability, and that autism status affects pragmatic language in boys with FXS. Findings suggest that language production across domains should be addressed during assessment and intervention for boys with FXS and boys with DS, with differing group profiles also suggesting potentially different areas of focus. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

Previous research into face processing in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has revealed atypical biases toward particular facial information during identity recognition. Specifically, a focus on features (or high spatial frequencies [HSFs]) has been reported for both face and nonface processing in ASD. The current study investigated the development of spatial frequency biases in face recognition in children and adolescents with and without ASD, using nonverbal mental age to assess changes in biases over developmental time. Using this measure, the control group showed a gradual specialization over time toward middle spatial frequencies (MSFs), which are thought to provide the optimal information for face recognition in adults. By contrast, individuals with ASD did not show a bias to one spatial frequency band at any stage of development. These data suggest that the "midband bias" emerges through increasing face-specific experience and that atypical face recognition performance may be related to reduced specialization toward optimal spatial frequencies in ASD.

This study investigates whether distinct neurodevelopmental disorders show distinct patterns of impairments in particular grammatical abilities and the relation of those grammatical patterns to general language delays and intellectual disabilities. We studied two disorders (autism and Williams syndrome [WS]) and two distinct properties (Principle A that governs reflexives and Principle B that, together with its associated pragmatic rule, governs pronouns) of the binding module of grammar. These properties are known to have markedly different courses of acquisition in typical development. We compare the knowledge of binding in children with autism with language impairment (ALI) and those with normal language (ALN) to that of children with WS, matched on age to the ALN group, and on age and nonverbal mental age (MA) to the ALI group, as well as to two groups of typically developing (TD) controls, matched on nonverbal MA to ALI and ALN groups. Our results reveal a remarkably different pattern of comprehension of personal pronouns and reflexives in ALI as opposed to ALN, WS, and two groups of TD controls. All five groups demonstrated an equal delay in their comprehension of personal pronouns, in line with widely reported delays in TD literature, argued to be due to delayed pragmatic abilities. However, and most strikingly, the ALI group also showed a pronounced difficulty in comprehension of reflexive pronouns, and particularly of the knowledge that the antecedent of a reflexive must c-command it. The revealed pattern confirms the existence of a particular impairment concerning Principle A in this module of grammar, unrelated to general language delays or cognitive deficits generally present in a large portion of individuals with autism as well as WS, or to general pragmatic deficits, known to be particularly prevalent in the population with autism. (Contains 2 tables and 12 footnotes.)

Objective: To examine the ability of children with intellectual disabilities to give reliable accounts of personally experienced events, considering the effects of delay, severity of disability, and the types of interview prompt used. Method: In a between-subjects design, we compared children with intellectual disabilities (7-12 years) that fell in either the mild-borderline range (n = 46) or the moderate range (n = 35) and typically developing children matched for either chronological age (7-12 years; n = 60) or mental age (4-9 years; n = 65) with respect to memories of an interactive event about which they were interviewed after either a short (1-week) or long (6-month) delay. Children were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Investigative Interview Protocol (Lamb, Hershkowitz, Orbach, & Esplin, 2008) to elicit their recall of the event and were then asked a series of highly suggestive questions to allow both their reliability and suggestibility to be examined. Results: The children with mild intellectual disabilities were as able as their mental age matches, whereas children with more severe cognitive impairments were qualitatively different across the various competencies examined. However, even children with more severe impairments were highly accurate in this supportive interview context. Conclusions: The findings indicate that children with intellectual disabilities can be valuable informants when forensically interviewed and can provide clear guidance about the ways in which they should be interviewed. (Contains 3 tables and 1 footnote.)

Language profiles of children with autistic disorder and intellectual disability (n = 36) were significantly different from the comparison groups of children with intellectual disability (n = 26) and typically developing children (n = 34). The group low-functioning children with autistic disorder obtained a higher mean score on expressive than on receptive language, whereas both comparison groups showed the reverse pattern. Nonverbal mental age, joint attention, and symbolic understanding of pictures were analyzed in relation to concurrent receptive and expressive language abilities. In the group with autistic disorder and intellectual disability, symbol understanding and joint attention were most strongly related to language abilities. Nonverbal mental age was the most important predictor of language abilities in the comparison groups. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

Cognitive flexibility has been measured with inductive reasoning or explicit rule tasks in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The "Flexible Item Selection Task" (FIST) differs from previous cognitive flexibility tasks in ASD research by giving children an abstract, ambiguous rule to switch. The ASD group (N = 22; Mean age = 8.28 years, SD = 1.52) achieved a lower shift percentage than the typically developing verbal mental-age control group (N = 22; Mean age = 6.26 years, SD = 0.82). There was a significant positive correlation between verbal mental age and shift percentage for children with ASD. Group differences on the FIST converge and extend prior evidence documenting an impaired ability to adapt rapidly to changes in task demands for individuals with ASD.

The present study examined narrative development in children and adolescents with Down syndrome longitudinally. Narratives were collected from 32 children and adolescents with Down syndrome three times over a 1-year period. Both micro- and macrolevel analyses were conducted. Significant growth over the 1-year period was seen in semantic complexity and narrative structure. However, there was no evidence of growth in syntactic complexity or narrative length. Mental age and comprehension skills at Time 1 predicted scores in all 4 areas at Time 3. Expressive language skills added further to the prediction of syntactic complexity and story length.

Aberrant attention is a core feature of fragile X syndrome (FXS), however, little is known regarding the developmental trajectory and underlying physiological processes of attention deficits in FXS. Atypical visual attention is an early emerging and robust indicator of autism in idiopathic (non-FXS) autism. Using a biobehavioral approach with gaze direction and heart activity, we examined visual attention in infants with FXS at 9, 12, and 18 months of age with a cross-sectional comparison to 12-month-old typically developing infants. Analyses revealed lower HR variability, shallower HR decelerations, and prolonged look durations in 12-month old infants with FXS compared to typical controls. Look duration and increased latency to disengage attention were correlated with severity of autistic behavior but not mental age.

The aim of this research is to compare the types and functions of repetitions in two different corpora, one constituted of verbal interactions between adults and multiply-handicapped adolescents, the other between adults and young children of the same mental age as the adolescents. Our overall aim is to observe whether the communicative (linguistic and pragmatic) behaviour of adults varies according to the interlocutor and, if it does vary, in what ways. The main results show that adults do not use repetition strategy with the same aims according to the interlocutor. When interacting with a child, repetitions form part of a strategy of linguistic "tutoring" which allow the child to take on board progressively more complex linguistic constructions; it also enriches exchanges from a pragmatic point of view. On the other hand, when adults communicate with multiply-handicapped adolescents, their main aim is the maintaining of dialogue.